Buffalo brings out internal / external MediaStation 8x Blu-ray burners

While Sharp's busying readying its 8x Blu-ray burners for a 2010 release, Buffalo's busy bringing its 8x Blu-ray burners to the US of A. The company is hauling both an internal and external 8x MediaStation BD writer to US soil, both of which will also toast CD-Rs and a host of other discs without any fuss. The external unit connects via USB 2.0 or eSATA and the internal drive connects up via SATA. As for speeds, they'll burn BD-REs at 2X, DVD-RAM at 5x, DVD±Rs at 16x, DVD-RW at 6x, DVD+RW at 8x, CD-R at 48x and CD-RW at 24x. Both units are set for release this month at $399.99 (external; BR-816SU2) / $349.99 (internal; BR-816FBS).

[Ralph @ Sep 22nd 2008 12:49PM]

Does it work with OSX?

[Patriks7 @ Sep 22nd 2008 12:53PM]

Looks impressive
Too bad I don't have any use for it currently

[phanbouy @ Sep 22nd 2008 2:28PM]

keep us posted on your needs, k?

[Shinigami @ Sep 22nd 2008 12:55PM]

Thats still expensive IMO.
I'd get one blu-ray burner if the price was $100. Just in case. But I'd need $2-3 per blu-ray disks to use that burner.
But with unlimited fast internet and 1TB+ storages I don't really need a blu-ray or DVD burner. Only a reader to play those licensed movies.
And I don't need a reader either because Blu-Ray movies have a 10x price compared to DVDs, while not providing similar quality increase.
And no, I won't get an "upscaling DVD player" from Toshiba either, HDTVs can do the job just fine, so I'd rather spend more on HDTV and connect it to PC via HDMI.

[Otter @ Sep 22nd 2008 7:51PM]

take what he said... and then write it again...

[Jash Sayani @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:07PM]

Thats nice. Just a bit expensive... You can get a Mac mini with a SuperDrive for that price.... So, it makes up a better MediaStation and disk burner.

[cesium @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:18PM]

Or get a popcorn hour for less and smoke the mac mini

[Brian @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:08PM]

This is great, now I can transfer my HD- home videos on Blueray and distibute them to all my family members with PS3s, too bad for that ones stuck with 360s and HD-DVD add-ons, atleast they got Halo 3! ha ha

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:13PM]

Hello Brian,

This is your teacher. You don't think I'm watching you from behind my desk, but I am. Now, please turn off your internet-surfing phone and turn in your vocabulary homework from chapter 6.

[phanbouy @ Sep 22nd 2008 2:29PM]

is this your homework, Larry?

[Ignatius @ Sep 22nd 2008 2:39PM]

That would creep me the hell out.

[FreshJulius @ Sep 22nd 2008 3:09PM]

You see Larry?

This is what happens when you...a stranger in the...!

[phanbouy @ Sep 22nd 2008 3:26PM]

what are you doing?!?! i fuck YOUR car!!

[mapi @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:11PM]

I've got my eye on this one:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=220343

[Evan @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:42PM]

Why pay $400 to backup onto 50GB optical disks, when for the same price I could buy a few much larger capacity external hard disks and cycle through them for my backup needs?

[Reader @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:54PM]

For the price I paid for my most recent HDD, I could get 3TB or storage for that much.

[simon @ Sep 22nd 2008 5:14PM]

I find it much easier to share home movies with family when I burn them onto discs. Shipping external hard drives to everyone is a real PITA.

I find it much easier backing up to an external hard dive. Swapping discs is a real PITA.

[Jeremy @ Sep 22nd 2008 7:49PM]

I'll tell you why, because the economy is so awesome, that we need to spend all the extra money we are making, just look at how the Dow is kicking butt right now, and then you will understand.....LOL, seriously though I totally agree with you, storage is getting so cheap that any optical media, seems totally senseless.

[phanbouy @ Sep 22nd 2008 6:07PM]

simon, looks like you're in for a painful ass either way, huh?

[CaptSaltyJack @ Sep 22nd 2008 4:07PM]

Semi-offtopic: What I'd like to see is Buffalo working on routers again. Their routers are top notch, and blow LinkSys out of the water.

However, due to some patent garbage, their wireless stuff is on hold. :(

http://www.buffalotech.com/press/releases/buffalo-issues-a-statement-about-the-csiro-appeal/

[navstar @ Sep 22nd 2008 6:42PM]

How is this 8x if it only burns Blu-Ray at 2x? When you say 8x Blu-Ray burner, I expect it to burn Blu-Rays at... oh.... I don't know... 8x! Not DVD+RWs at 8x.

[KC @ Sep 22nd 2008 7:37PM]

That's not 8x. It's an emoticon! (Bobbit's wife)

[SoloSalsa @ Sep 22nd 2008 8:08PM]

It will do write-once at 8x, however, it can do BD-RE (rewritable) at only 2x.

[ssrat_ @ Sep 22nd 2008 9:22PM]

Blu-Ray as a user creatable media is going to be a failure, except for possibly Blu-Ray movie/games copying.

In the past it was more expensive to buy an external HDD for the same amount of space than a pack of CD's then DVD's NOW it is the other way around, as long as the drive is secure and has SOME cushion in it then the space war/compatibility is over.

500G is about perfect right now, and maybe even by Christmas with 1.5T prices the LOWLY 1T could be the winner.

It still sounds good 25G per disc, but the price point is way out there, add in the burner, a player for the movies and there is no way to make it pay off either right now or for the next year at the very least

[J @ Sep 23rd 2008 10:21AM]

I've had this Buffalo unit as my main burner now for about four months and it works very nicely. It burns everything from Blu-Ray down to CDs just fine. The obvious problem is that there isn't much to do with the unit from a Blu-Ray perspective, except backups and mionor B;u-Ray manipulation...

When I bought it I hoped to make back-ups of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs I purchased and while ripping DVDs works well, no one has put out a Blu-Ray ripping package yet. I talked to the SlySoft people, for example, and their response was that at $25 or so per disc, the demand for this just hasn't warranted the investment to finalize and release code of this sort. Oh well... at least I can deal with region codes and other misc. Blu-Ray things...

Fundamantally though, this is a good unit and I strongly suspect that it will be worth it's price in the longer term. We shall see.

[Westphillyres @ Sep 23rd 2008 8:56PM]

my asili media center pc has a blu-ray burner/player